Monthly Archives: November 2011

and a partridge in a pear tree.

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I grew up in a very Christmas household.

My mother has up to 8 trees decorated throughout her house — some according to a specific theme (say, one just with red cardinals, or a “family tree” with an ornament for each member of our extended family), and some more eclectic (the other “family tree” with sentimental ornaments from various years and travels — including a new one from their trip to Boston in October.)

My father has so much Christmas music — from multiple recordings of the Messiah to John Denver and the Muppets — that he could play it non-stop for a week and not hear the same performance twice.

We’ve hosted Christmas dinners and Christmas open houses, stacked the Christmas baking to the roof, and created our own set of Christmas traditions — from the things we do when we decorate a tree (after an initial “test plug”, we don’t turn the lights on until all the ornaments are placed, and we’re sitting down with all the lamps switched off, a glass of Martinelli’s apple cider in hand) to what we listen to coming home from family events on Christmas Eve (a recording of Dylan Thomas reading “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”… a piece we all know so well that we laugh in advance of our favorite parts.)

I’ve performed in Christmas plays and Christmas choirs, done a Christmas solo in front of 2,000 people (gah!), had a host of special dresses made by my mother for Christmas events both as a child and as an adult, and had the good fortune of living with my best friend — a fellow holly-mad girl who likes to put up her tree at the beginning of November and listen to Christmas music from October onward — for three very Christmas years.

I think much of my enthusiasm for the season began with my life in church growing up — but even after moving away from home and not being part of my father’s congregation anymore, I’ve still spent the last two months of every year gawking at garland and playing “A Charlie Brown Christmas” all day at work.

I’ve been with my parents every Christmas of my 37 years thus far, too.

Even if I’m only with them for a couple of days during the holidays, we manage to fit a lot of the traditions in. Last year, I had the joy (well, joy after a major delay in our trip to Vancouver because of a snowstorm that stranded us in Montreal) of introducing Gradon to life with Christmas junkies during a quick trip home last year. My brother (way, way up north) has missed a few years, but me?

Never once.

This year, however, because of all the wrangling around becoming (more officially) a part of the country I live in now, I won’t be headed home to trim the tree or to go for “light drives” (which is something I’d beg to do every night in December as a kid.)

I’m excited to begin our traditions as a family here, but I know it’s hard for my parents — my dad especially — because we’re so sentimental about our Christmas-ness. Most of their good friends have their kids close by, so there’s never a missed year in their celebrations. Even if their offspring spend the day with their in-laws, they show up for some portion of the holidays.

But I don’t live close by — not by a long shot — and life is more complicated for me. I chose the complications, mind you, but that doesn’t mean they don’t present small challenges at times.

Some of you, I’m sure, are reading this thinking that…

a. We are a bunch of freaks
b. We are a bunch of freaks and this really isn’t the end of the world, spaz
c. That your family is not this obsessed, and you’re thankful, because whoa
d. You wish you had an idyllic situation at home — this I know, because friends have said that my entire life
e. Seriously, it’s one day of the year

I get it.

But there are many steps to beginning a new life in a new city with a new family, and this is one more, so I’m cutting myself some slack when it comes to sentimentality.

Gradon does not come from such a tinsel-riddled clan, so part of me wondered if my enthusiasm for the smell of pine and the sound of sleigh bells would freak him out. But, as with most of my other obsessions in life, he has stepped up to enjoy things with me — exactly as I have done with most of his loves (except for ’90s hardcore punk music. There are limits.)

The other night, we sat under a blanket my mom knit for us, drinking cinnamon-y tea, and creating a room-by-room Google doc of what decorations we wanted to get, and how we would deck our (bigger than last year) halls.

He even phoned the nearest Christmas tree farm (without being asked!) to find out when we could go pick up a spruce or fir to grace the living room.

He’s on board. And I love it.

But in thinking about all of this, I’m conscious of the reality that most of us spend our lives either
aligning ourselves with,
living up to,
smiling back on,
accepting with conditions,
distancing ourselves from,
or totally rejecting the things we knew and experienced growing up. You choose a position based on how you feel about your early years, and what feels right now.

I have friends who don’t spend time with their families because the day they left home felt like emerging from prison. I have friends who dread going home, because things have changed radically since they were a kid, via divorce or a death in the family or a fractured relationship. I have friends who have worked hard for years to accept their parents as they are, despite difficult memories, and they steel themselves for a few days back in the insanity.

I get why they hear my stories about Christmas everything, and think my entire family is bananas.

I also have friends who don’t celebrate Christmas for whatever reason, or who think Christmas is over-commercialized, or who find the music annoying, or who see it as a stressful time of year that costs too much, kills their schedule, and makes them want to get away from it all.

I don’t force them to listen to carols or blather on to them about the red cups at Starbucks.

It’s just not everyone’s thing. Fair enough.

But it’s my thing. And my family’s thing. And now Gradon and Ethan’s thing, by proxy.

I am going to miss the Christmas madness back at home with my parents. They’ll miss me, too, and my boys.

But in the midst of so many big changes in my world over the last year and a half, I feel beyond blessed to have such amazing memories over the years, and the chance to create my own amazing memories with people I love.

Not to mention welcoming new friends and family into my particular brand of crazy…

…starting now.

what does marriage change? everything and nothing… and that’s the point.

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I’ve known for a long time that three particular things would happen in the wake of my wedding — and no, not the “post-party letdown” I hear about from my friends, or a radical change in the length of my hair (everyone goes short after growing their hair out for photos, apparently.) Rather, the following:

1. I wouldn’t like how I look in any of the pictures (it’s inevitable. I always wonder where my neck went, and why I can’t stop myself from making really crazy faces at inappropriate times.)
2. I would get sick (I think my sinus infection is starting… now.)
3. I would be very happy to be married to one Gradon Tripp.

Other than that, I was certain he still wouldn’t like tomatoes or mushrooms, and I still wouldn’t like shutting windows (even when the house is freezing. ) He would still be a little tone deaf, and I would still prefer to wear flip flops… even as I know I am an affront to cosmopolitan style. I still do laundry and cook, while he still does all the yard work and driving. And he still loves shopping more than I do.

We’re the same people we were before we got up on the morning of our wedding, and made it all official.

What I didn’t know is what would be different.

Not just different in terms of, say, my name (Gradon calls me “Mrs. Tripp” about 90% of the time, which I’m sure he’ll get tired of sometime in the next 20 years), or the amount of rings either of us wears.

No, the difference is at the core of my brain and my heart.

I feel… peaceful.

Peaceful not in the “what? You can sleep now?” sense.

Peaceful not in the “You are less likely to babble aimlessly?” sense.

Peaceful in that I did the right thing, and now, a whole lot of other things seem clearer.

Now I can stop worrying about being good enough, and trust in the fact that I always was. And even when I’m not, I’m loved.

Now I can make plans that have large amounts of years attached to them, without anything but the normal unpredictability of life standing in our way.

Now I can go to sleep at night knowing that, whatever I wake up to the next day, I have backup. A partner. Someone who wants it to work as much as I do. Someone who trusts me with his life. Someone I trust with mine.

And yeah, I knew these things before I got married. But like the last coat of varnish on a piece of furniture, getting married sealed everything in.

Life won’t ever be perfect.

There will be things we want to do, but we won’t have the time or means.

There will be stuff we want, but can’t afford.

There will be tough decisions to make together that not everyone will agree with… but are ours to make anyway.

There will be days when we drive each other up the wall and see life through completely different lenses.

There will be obstacles to deal with that will absolutely, unavoidably, achingly suck.

But we’ll figure it out.

And that “we” makes all the difference.

bearing responsibility.

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There are many different ways people absolve themselves of responsibility.

“I couldn’t have known it would turn out like this.”

“I think I did enough.”

“I didn’t want to cause trouble.”

“I didn’t want to get involved.”

“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

“I thought it would do more harm than good.”

“Well, hindsight is 20/20.”

When the mantle of responsibility is small, excuses seem more feasible. We’ve all taken the path of least resistance at some point.

However, there are moments when no excuse can recuse you from acting.

Moments when you stand in the gap between what is, and what should be.

Moments when you have the power to make a difference or take a stand.

It’s certainly not easy to bear responsibility. To say the hard thing. To deal with the consequences.

What if everything gets worse before it gets better? What if I hurt more than I help? What if I put myself out there, and no one listens? What if nothing changes?

Is it worth it?

I spent years in various positions at a summer camp, from serving as an assistant counselor at 15, to becoming the program director at 28. My level of responsibility for the children we welcomed and the staff I worked with was different in each role, but at the core of each position there was an ironclad understanding: whatever else we might do in a day, our priority was to keep the kids safe.

Safe in the water, safe on the rock wall, safe in the middle of a soccer game, safe on a hike through the woods. If we wanted to plan something or do something, the first question we had to answer was simple: would the kids be safe? And if the answer was ambiguous, or there wasn’t a way to guarantee their well-being, we wouldn’t do it.

When I became the director of the camp, I considered buying a t-shirt that said “NO” because I was so tired of giving that answer, day in, day out. I wanted everyone to have fun — but my responsibility to protect our campers had to win out. That line in the sand didn’t always make me popular. And tough things still happened, even when we took every precaution possible. But I could lie in bed every night fairly secure in the knowledge that I’d done what I could for our kids.

Several times in that span of years, I was obligated to report abuse.

We were trained to be aware of the signs of emotional, physical, or sexual interference, and to be ready to listen to kids who arrived with heavy burdens. We knew not to ask leading questions or to push for information if we suspected something, but more often than not, the secrets and pain would emerge without any sort of encouragement. At that point, we’d be required to report what we’d been told. Not to assume what had happened or to condemn anyone or to push for more information, but to report and follow through to the full extent the law allowed. If you suspected something was up and you failed to report it, you could end up in serious hot water.

But it wasn’t the legal obligation that made me take that difficult step, over and over; it was my inherent belief that I was responsible for those children. I was entrusted with their care. To ignore that something had, and might continue to hurt them was not an option.

When I told kids it was my responsibility to tell someone who could help them, most of them would cry — sometimes out of relief, sometimes out of anger, and sometimes out of fear. I hated those moments, because it felt like I was hurting them again. And as is often the case with hidden truth bubbling to the surface, it was going to get worse before it got better.

I was yelled at.

I was threatened.

I was called a liar.

I was told that I’d ruined a life.

But as long as I reported only what I’d seen and been told — no extrapolation, no assumptions, no rushing to judgment, no witch hunts, no gossiping or breaking of trust — I could live with the response. From there, the law dictated we had to leave it in the hands of the authorities, to avoid posing additional risk to the child, or their family, or my staff. We did everything up to the point we could do no more, and followed up in any way we could from there.

Sometimes that was the hardest part. Always that was the hardest part.

To hit the wall of “all I could do.”

“All I could do” still haunts me sometimes.

That’s why I can’t understand what’s happening at Penn State right now.

I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t have done more if there was more to do.

When you weren’t handcuffed by rules.

When you held a position of authority that gave you the power to follow through — and the responsibility, morally and ethically.

Former Penn State Nittany Lions coach Joe Paterno “fulfilled his legal obligation”, according to counsel, because he told Tim Curley what he’d been told.

His former close co-worker and friend of more than three decades, Jerry Sandusky, was suspected of doing — witnessed doing — something beyond horrifying, repeatedly, over the course of several years, to those most vulnerable among us… and he “fulfilled his legal obligation.”

The locker room Joe gave pep talks in for years — where wins were celebrated, where losses were mourned, where character was refined, where standards were set– was potentially the site of incomprehensible evil… and he “fulfilled his legal obligation.”

There were questions to be asked, reports to follow up on, and kids who might need help. But Joe — a father of five children who attended Penn State, a grandfather of seventeen, and a coach and mentor to hundreds and thousands more young people — had “fulfilled his legal obligation,” so that would be the end of it.

Until it wasn’t. And it won’t be.

So to Mr. Paterno and those fans and students who support his choice — if you can call a riot “supportive” — I leave you with five things that are true:

Children are more important than football. Adults are responsible to know this.

Children are more important than not making waves or putting a dent in a friendship. Adults are responsible to know this.

Children are more important than your reputation or your ranking. Adults are responsible to know this.

Children deserve protection and safety, and to be made a priority. Adults are responsible to know this.

If you choose to believe and act otherwise, you bear responsibility for your choice.

And for that, there is no absolution.